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Global Imbalances: Implications for Emerging Asia and Latin America1 Barry Eichengreen and Yung Chul Park
March 2006
The longer the current pattern of global imbalances persists, the less agreement there
is about how it ultimately will be resolved. The growth of the U.S. current account deficit
after the turn of the century was first met with warnings that such large deficits were
unsustainable, that foreign finance would not be provided indefinitely, and that the situation
could culminate in an abrupt interruption to capital inflows, sharp compression of the U.S.
current account, and a global slowdown or worse (Obstfeld and Rogoff 2000, 2004, Roubini
and Setser 2004, Mann 2004, Mussa 2004). As equity inflows gave way to debt inflows and
as private purchases of U.S. assets gave way to foreign central bank purchases, these early
warnings were echoed and amplified. But the longer the deficit persisted and the further it
expanded without obvious adverse consequences, the larger swelled the ranks of the
doubters. It was argued that foreigners would continue to direct substantial amounts of
capital toward the United States, thereby financing the country�s deficit, because the
flexibility of the American economy had delivered a permanent increase in the productivity
and profitability of investment (Cooper 2004). It was argued that the U.S. could run large
deficits and finance carry a large external debt relatively easily because U.S. foreign
investments earn a significantly higher return than foreign investments in the United States
(Kitchen 2006). The apotheosis of this view was the assertion that statistics are misleading
and the U.S. deficit is not, in fact, a deficit at all. That as late as 2005 America was officially
receiving net interest income from abroad meant that the country still had more foreign assets
1 University of California, Berkeley and Seoul National University. This paper is an elaboration of an earlier analysis of global imbalances and emerging markets written for a conference sponsored by Fondad in the
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than liabilities, implying the existence of significant un- or under-recorded U.S. exports of
goods and services (Hausmann and Sturzenegger 2005).
Truth in advertising requires acknowledging that no one knows for sure how the
current situation will play out. While the authors are not without views on this subject, we
do not attempt to elaborate or defend them in this paper.2 Rather, we assume the worst � a
disorderly correction of the U.S. current account � and analyze the impact on the emerging
markets of Asia and Latin America. This is the kind of �scenario planning� in which policy
makers should regularly engage, though instances where they do so are rare. Indeed, we are
not aware of other places where officials and others have gone through the exercise
undertaken here.
We first ask how a disorderly correction of the U.S. current account deficit would
look. We then analyze the channels through which East Asia and Latin America will be
affected and how economies in the two regions will respond. This leads us to two important
conclusions.
Our first conclusion is that the channels through which East Asia and Latin America
will be affected by a disorderly correction are very different. In Asia, the impact of a
disorderly correction is likely to flow through trade rather than financial channels. Prior to
recent decades, large-scale international capital flows, trade multipliers and terms of trade
effects were the principal avenues through which events in the advanced countries affected
the developing world. The same is likely to again be the case today. In particular, the most
open Asian economies that depend most on exports to the United States will feel the most
powerful negative effects.
Hague, February 27-28, 2006. We thank the Interamerican Development Bank for its support, which helped us to develop the Asian-Latin American comparison.
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Most Latin American economies, with the notable exception of Mexico, are less
dependent on exports to the United States. They will continue to feel negative effects mainly
through the operation of financial channels. Interest rates will rise if there is a flight to
quality, making it more difficult to roll over maturing debts and to service interest-rate linked
obligations, and this will disproportionately impact Latin America�s financially fragile
economies. But the effects are likely to be more selective than in previous crises. Several
Latin American governments have retired dollar-denominated debts, freeing them from the
risk that a negative shock that causes their exchange rates to weaken will produce a sharp
increase the local-currency cost of interest and amortization payments. Countries like
Mexico have lengthened the maturity of their debts and locked in debt-servicing costs. Other
Latin American governments have pre-funded their borrowing for several years. In this
scenario the main impact will be felt by countries like Ecuador with substantial external
financing needs and those like Brazil with considerable amounts of maturing short-term debt
to roll over.
Our second conclusion is that the emerging economies of East Asia are in a stronger
position to implement offsetting domestic policies. Fiscal positions are stronger. (We refer
here not just to the primary surplus or deficit but the overall surplus or deficit and the
inherited level of debt.) This means that they can use fiscal policy to boost domestic demand
in the event that export demand tails off. In Latin America, in contrast, there is less room for
expansionary fiscal policy to stimulate demand in the event that the stimulus derived from
strong commodity prices and rapidly growing export markets dries up. Countries like
Mexico where the debt is denominated in domestic currency and locked in at fixed rates can
let the currency decline to crowd in imports, but countries like Brazil with short-term debt to
2 For our views see Eichengreen and Park (2004).
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roll over, where a weaker currency may be taken as augering higher interest rates, will be
reluctant to contemplate even this.3 Thus, even if it is argued that East Asia will feel stronger
negative effects from a disorderly correction of the U.S. current account (in other words,
even if one believes, with the authors, that overall the trade channel may operate more
powerfully than the financial channel this time around), it is not clear, given the absence of
scope for a policy response, that the outcome will be more pleasant for Latin America.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 1 imagines how a
disorderly correction would look. Section 2 then examines how East Asia and Latin America
will be affected. Section 3 analyzes the scope for policy responses in the two regions.
Section 4 concludes.
1. How a Disorderly Correction Would Look
Imagine that the U.S. current account deficit is allowed to continue widening, from
6½ per cent of U.S. GDP today to 10 per cent of U.S. GDP in 2010. (This is the implication
of the assumption that the real effective exchange rate of the dollar remains unchanged along
with the stance of fiscal policy. See Roubini and Setser 2004.) With a deficit ratio of 10 per
cent of GDP and a rate of nominal GDP growth of 5 per cent, the U.S. ratio of external debt
to GDP would only begin to level off when it approaches 200 per cent. This is a dramatically
higher level of external indebtedness than we have every seen for a large country. It is
3 Note that, given its dependence on exports to the United States and dominance of long-maturity fixed-interest-rate debt, Mexico begins to look more and more like an Asian country. If only its growth rate looked more like that of an Asian country.
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implausible that foreign investors would willingly absorb such massive quantities of U.S.
debt.4
If this conclusion is accepted, it follows that at some point purchases by foreign
investors of U.S. assets will decline. As capital inflows tail off, the current account deficit
will narrow, and U.S. external indebtedness will converge to a lower steady-state ratio to
GDP. The key question (aside from what an acceptable steady-state ratio is) is whether that
correction begins now so that adjustment can proceed smoothly, or whether the correction is
delayed until the acceptable upper limit on the net external debt is approached, at which point
foreign finance would dry up abruptly and the U.S. current account deficit would be
eliminated at a stroke.
In this latter scenario, the unavoidable consequence would be sharp compression of
U.S. and global demand. If capital inflows into the United States decline by 6 ½ per cent of
GDP (their current level) because foreign finance dries up completely, then the current
account must move immediately to balance by the definition of the balance of payments.
The result on impact would be for U.S. demand and specifically U.S. net demand for imports
to decline by 6 ½ per cent. With apologies for the repetition, a 6 ½ per cent decline in U.S.
demand is a recipe for a decline in global output in the amount of 6 ½ per cent of U.S. GDP,
other things equal. Assuming a world economy growing at 4 per cent and a U.S. economy
that accounts for a quarter of the world, this eliminates a substantial fraction of the normal
growth in global demand. And, of course, the second-round effects following on this fall in
4 In this scenario foreigners end up owning well more than half the U.S. capital stock. Even if one believes that foreigners would be prepared to devote such a large portion of their portfolios to claims on the U.S. economy, this raises the specter of a political backlash in the United States. (If you think the Unical and Dubai Ports World affairs were unfortunate, you ain�t seen nothin� yet.) This is another reason for thinking that current account deficits and their equivalent, foreign finance and purchases of U.S. assets, at these levels would be unsustainable, politically if not also economically. In this paper we are concerned about debt sustainability in this broad political sense, not merely in the narrow economic sense in which the issue is often posed.
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production could then amplify the impact on output and employment. For the world as a
whole, this could be a major recessionary event.5
How would changes in relative prices work to bring about this result? A decline in
net foreign purchases of claims on the United States would causes the prices of dollar assets
to fall, including but not limited to the price of the dollar itself � that is, the exchange rate.
The flip side of this downward pressure on the prices of dollar-denominated assets is a rise in
their yields; thus, this event would eliminate the Greenspan Conundrum of low long-term
interest rates. Another way of thinking about this is in terms of interest parity; here again a
declining dollar and higher U.S. interest rates are two sides of the same coin.
Insofar as a falling dollar augurs imported inflation, the Fed would then be forced to
raise policy rates faster than expected. Higher interest rates across the term structure would
then damp down household spending by raising the cost of consumer credit. They would
reducing housing affordability, reinforcing the fall in housing prices presumably associated
with the aforementioned asset disinflation. They would limit the increase in perceived
wealth that has worked to sustain household consumption and borrowing. They would
discourage investment by raising the cost of capital.6
To be sure, U.S. output and employment can be sustained if net imports are reduced �
that is, if exported are boosted. This is consistent with the observation that the dollar will fall
because of the curtailment of capital inflows. But the scenario in question is unrealistically
rosy; the empirical literature generally suggests that significant time is required for changes
in the relative price of exports produce changes in export volumes. And even under this
5 Readers for whom the plausible counterfactual is that the U.S. current account falls by �only� say half can scale down the numbers correspondingly without vitiating our point. 6 The fact that U.S. interest rates have recently risen relative to foreign interest rates is at least superficially consistent with the notion that the market attaches a rising probability to this scenario.
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optimistic scenario, the compression of U.S. demand does not disappear; it is simply shifted
to the rest of the world. For countries other than the United States, this would not be a happy
outcome. It would mean a shift in demand away from their products. The result would be
some redistribution of the recessionary impulse from the U.S. to other countries but no
mitigation of the recessionary effects overall.
A frequently-voiced objection to this scenario is that foreign central banks would
never allow financing for the U.S. deficit to be curtailed so abruptly. Foreign monetary
authorities are aware that they have an interest in maintaining the flow of external finance for
the U.S. current account deficit in order to avoid precipitating a recession. They would step
in with further purchases of U.S. assets if private investors pulled the plug.
But foreign central banks also have an interest in avoiding capital losses on their
dollar reserves. Selling U.S. Treasury and agency securities for, inter alia, German bunds
represents a gross capital outflow that would offset the ongoing flow of incremental finance.
In addition, central banks worry about the impact on domestic monetary conditions and
inflation of running large ongoing surpluses. They worry about the resource misallocation
that results from keeping interest rates artificially low.7 They worry about the present or
prospective future costs of sterilizing the financial effects of reserve accumulation. For all
these reasons, they have an incentive to let their currencies rise if they think they can limit
the effects, which means that they will not indefinitely continue to support the dollar as
purchasers of last resort of U.S. Treasury bills. Of particular importance here, they have an
incentive to diversify out of dollars if they think they can do so without prompting reserve
7 Effects that are most clearly evident in China in the form of investment rates that are surely too high to be consistent with allocative efficiency.
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diversification by other central banks and precipitating a significant deprecation of the
dollar.8
To be clear, we are not arguing that the U.S. deficit will necessarily be compressed
this sharply. But neither can this possibility be ruled out. In any case, focusing on the worst-
case scenario is useful for gauging the implications for emerging markets.
2. The Impact on Emerging Markets
World Bank (2005a) provides a catalog of channels through which a sharp
depreciation of the dollar and sudden compression of the U.S. current account deficit will
impact emerging markets. To start with positive effects, a declining dollar will reduce the
cost of servicing dollar-denominated debt. To some extent this effect is already evident:
between 2002 and 2004 the decline in the dollar reduced ratios of debt to GNP and debt
service to exports by one percentage point, reflecting the dominance of dollar-denominated
debt.9 This effect favors relatively heavily indebted countries, where the reduction of debt
burdens is particularly valuable, and dollar borrowers, where the exchange rate change works
in their favor. In practice, this means mainly Latin American countries like Brazil, Chile and
Columbia, where the Bank estimates that the fall in the dollar from 2002 to 2004 reduced the
ratio of debt to exports by 4 to 10 per cent.10
On the negative side, rising U.S. interest rates and declining U.S. Treasury prices
could precipitate a flight to quality that heightens volatility in emerging financial markets,
8 The language here is designed to emphasize that central banks intervening to support the dollar face a collective action problem � that their collective interest may be different than their individual interest. And problems of collective action are notoriously difficult to sustain when they involve the central banks of heterogeneous countries operating in a very imperfect information environment (Eichengreen 2004). 9 World Bank (2005), p.52. 10 To a lesser extent positive effects are also felt by South Africa and Turkey.
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with adverse implications for the level and price of capital flows. The curtailment of capital
flows toward the United States would make for higher U.S. Treasury benchmarks and wider
emerging-market bond spreads, especially for borrowers with high ratios of debt to GDP.
The assumption here is that U.S. policy rates are important for the evolution of global
financial conditions, and emerging market spreads and capital flows co-vary with global
financial conditions. Emerging markets also will feel a negative wealth effect from capital
losses on their foreign reserves.
This emphasis on the impact on financial markets of a fall in the dollar reflects an
effort to shoe-horn this discussion into the financial-crisis paradigm of the 1990s, where
sudden stops in capital flows in periods when there occurred a flight to quality by investors in
advanced countries were the immediate way in which emerging markets were affected. This
time around, in contrast, the financial consequences are likely to be more ambiguous and less
obviously damaging to emerging markets. In general, the positive correlation between U.S.
interest rates and emerging market spreads is less pronounced and less stable than suggested
in the World Bank�s analysis; for a number of countries and periods this correlation has been
essentially nonexistent (Eichengreen and Mody 1998). The response depends on the reason
for the rise in U.S. rates and on the reaction of the other advanced countries. If monetary
tightening simply reflects the desire to normalize U.S. policy rates, as the Fed seeks to back
out the lingering impact of the sharp interest rate reductions taken at the beginning of the
decade, then it is plausible that rates in other countries should also rise, as gross financial
flows from the U.S. to foreign markets are deterred by rising yields at home. The saving
grace here is that interest rates in the financial centers should rise only gradually, as the Fed
and other advanced-country central banks weigh the advantages of higher rates for the
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maintenance of price stability against any negative implications for their economies. And
gradual increases in rates should be relatively easy for emerging markets to absorb.
If, on the other hand, the impetus for higher in the U.S. rates stems from sudden
evaporation of the willingness of foreign investors to finance the country�s current account
deficit and from the inflationary effects of the consequent fall in the dollar, then higher
interest rates in the U.S. will be accompanied by lower interest rates in the rest of the world.
With less liquidity flowing to the U.S., more liquidity will remain in other financial centers.
Again, this is an implication of the interest parity condition. In other words, in this scenario
in which the dollar falls, foreign interest rates must be lower than U.S. rates by the amount of
expected foreign currency appreciation in order to satisfy the no-arbitrage condition. And if
higher interest rates in the U.S. are accompanied by lower rates in Europe, then it is not
obvious that emerging markets will be adversely affected.
For emerging markets to feel the pinch, one must add another element that produces a
significant drop in global liquidity. One possibility is a sharp adjustment of U.S. asset prices
that produces distress, or at least fears of distress, among financial institutions, as happened
in the bond market correction of 1994 and the LTCM crisis of 1998. Such fears could result
in deleveraging by foreign as well as U.S. financial institutions, reducing global liquidity.
They could produce the aforementioned flight to quality and reduce the appetite for emerging
market debt.11
But a problem for narrators of this story is that emerging markets have greatly
reduced their dependence on new foreign borrowing. As a group they are running current
account surpluses, which means that they have no need for additional foreign debt. In fact,
they are reducing net external debt by accumulating reserves and in some cases (those of the
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major Latin American countries) using some of those reserves to retire dollar-denominated
obligations.12 To be sure, if the U.S. current account abruptly moves to balance, current
accounts in Asia and Latin America will have to move to balance as well, assuming that
Europe�s current account remains where it is. And where debt is maturing it will have to be
rolled over. But many Latin American and Eastern European countries in this position have
pre-funded their re-financing needs while the going is good. Venezuela was already pre-
financing debt for 2006 in the middle of 2005; by mid-2005 Mexico had already covered its
financing requirements through the end of 2007. Excluding Ecuador, whose external
financing needs are considerable, Latin American net financing needs in 2006 are less than 3
per cent of exports, down from more than 30 per cent in 1996-98.13 Excluding Turkey,
which has a large current account deficit, only half of which is financed by FDI, and large
amounts of debt to roll over, Emerging Europe�s net financial needs will be less than 7 per
cent of exports, down from nearly 24 per cent in 1996-98.14 If funding suddenly becomes
unavailable, Latin American countries still could retire their maturing obligations and meet
their other external financial needs by liquidating just 10 per cent of their reserves. The
comparable figure for Emerging Europe is 11 per cent. Alternatively, closing this gap by
increasing net exports would require only a 1 per cent depreciation of Latin American
currencies (5 per cent including Ecuador) and a 3 per cent depreciation of Emerging
European currencies (5 per cent including Turkey), by Deutsche Bank estimates.15
11 As happened in these earlier periods. 12 This is most obvious in the case of Brady bonds, but the trend is more general (viz. Brazil). 13 Ecuador�s net financing need is more than 70 per cent of exports in 2006, driving up the regional average. Note that all these calculations make assumptions about the continuing flow of FDI and official finance, mainly from the IMF. The assume away the danger of large-scale capital flight. 14 Including Turkey they will average about 10 per cent. 15 See Deutsche Bank (2005).
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Given this, many emerging markets would be largely insulated from the financial
impact of higher interest rates. The main exceptions would be countries like Ecuador with
substantial external financing needs and countries like Brazil where the average duration of
the debt less than a year and over half is still linked to the overnight interest rate. For
countries in this position, a rise in global interest rates could have serious consequences.16
Curiously, the World Bank�s analysis neglects what we regard as potentially the most
important negative channel through which emerging markets will be affected, namely the
impact on their trade. The abrupt elimination of foreign financing for the U.S. current
account would force the country�s net imports to decline by 7 per cent of U.S. GDP. This
could have serious consequences for emerging markets, even more serious than the impact of
higher interest rates.
Since it would take time for dollar depreciation to crowd in additional U.S. exports,
we assume that the entire swing comes in the form of U.S. imports. As a first cut we also
assume that the dollar falls by the same amount against all foreign currencies, reducing U.S.
imports across the board. The impact on other regions then depends on the importance of
exports to the United States as a share of regional GDP. In data for 2004 this share varies
from a high of 25 per cent in the small highly-open East Asian economies (Hong Kong,
Singapore and Taiwan) to a low of 3 per cent in the euro area and Japan.17 (See Tables 1 and
2.) In between one finds the Anglo Saxon economies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and
the United Kingdom), the larger East Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
16 But recall our earlier skepticism that global rebalancing would mean higher global rates. 17 We should probably discount the very high figures for these three countries at least to some extent because of the low domestic content of many of their exports.
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South Korea and Thailand) and China toward the high end, at 8-9 per cent and Latin America
at the low end at 4 per cent.18
It flows from this focus on trade that a disorderly correction of the U.S. current
account imbalance will have the largest impact on emerging markets most dependent on
exports to the United States, which means above all the small entrepot economies of Asia.
Looking at the issue comparatively, East Asia is more vulnerable than Latin America mainly
because the Asian region is more open and not inconsiderably linked to the United States. A
more nuanced analysis would distinguish the impact on different countries in the two regions.
For example, it would observe that Mexico is much more vulnerable to the operation of the
trade channel than many other Latin American countries.
A more nuanced analysis would also allow a significant slowdown in the U.S. (and
perhaps also a more modest slowdown in China induced by the appreciation of the renminbi
and the deceleration in the growth of U.S. import demand) to differentially impact
commodity exporting countries. The rapid rate of increase in commodity prices in recent
years has reflected strong demand emanating disproportionately from these two countries. If
demand growth in the U.S. and China and therefore demand growth globally now slow, the
terms of trade of commodity exporters like Chile and Indonesia will be hit. Conversely,
developing countries that depend on commodity imports, which means mainly the resource-
poor East Asian countries and, to a lesser degree, Latin American countries like Brazil, will
experience weaker commodity prices as a partial cushion against slower global growth.19
Here petroleum prices, whose procyclical movement is especially strong, given capacity
constraints, and their impact on countries like Mexico and Venezuela (along with their
18 Oil exporters also rely heavily on the United States for their final market, but they are a special case.
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countervailing impact on the low-income oil-importing countries of Africa) are simply a
particularly pronounced case in point.
In sum, the principal risk to global stability and thus to stability in emerging markets
from the current pattern of global imbalances lies in the possibility of a disorderly correction
that would precipitate a major slowdown in U.S. growth and a significant rise in U.S. interest
rates. But emerging markets in Asia and Latin America are likely to feel different effects,
transmitted through different channels. In East Asia it is the compression of U.S. net imports
and hence the operation of the trade channel that will be felt most powerfully. Those East
Asian economies that are especially open and dependent on exports to the United States are
in the most vulnerable position. In Latin America, in contrast, lower levels of trade openness
and less dependence on exports to the United States make for less susceptibility to the
operation of this channel. There, however, the financial channel will matter more. In
particular, Latin American countries with substantial external financing needs (Ecuador) and
large amounts of short-term and interest-rate-linked debt (Brazil) will feel strong negative
effects.
To be sure, generalizing about regions is dangerous; there are exceptions here as
always. Mexico looks like an Asian country in terms of its exposures, while the Philippines
(not for the first time) looks more than a little Latin.
In addition, the impact will tend to vary with the policy response, not just with the
extent to which currencies are allowed to move but with macroeconomic policy generally. It
is to this issue that we now turn.
19 Contrary to popular perception, Brazil with its large and varied manufacturing sector is not a net commodity exporter.
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3. What Emerging Markets Can Do
We now ask what emerging markets can do to minimize these risks, discussing Asia
and Latin America in turn. We are conscious that we do not also discuss policy in the United
States. This is not because U.S. policy is unimportant or that it is not urgent that it be
improved but only that it is not our subject in this paper on emerging markets. A proper
analysis of this aspect of the problem requires a paper of its own.20
Asia. In Asia, China is the big dog.21 The debate over the country�s role in the
global adjustment process will be familiar. Since China�s growth strategy is export led, a
substantial appreciation of the renminbi that damages export competitiveness could
jeopardize growth and produce a politically destabilizing rise in unemployment. The
Chinese authorities are understandably reluctant to mess with success. But it is also hard to
imagine that global rebalancing could go smoothly without a contribution from China. If the
U.S. current account moves toward smaller deficit, other countries� current accounts must
move to smaller surplus. China�s surplus is roughly a third the size of the U.S. deficit. It is
hard to imagine that the entire burden of adjustment could be borne by the countries
accounting for the other two thirds (Japan, the Asian NICs, Latin America, and the oil
producers).
With Chinese investment rates running at nearly 50 per cent of GDP, it is absurd to
think that current account adjustment could be effected through still higher investment.
Already there are reasons for questioning the efficiency with which investment capital is
20 For a start see Eichengreen (2006). That said, we are not confidence that the U.S. will take steps to raise the likelihood of a smooth readjustment of its external accounts. Again, for prudent planners engaged in scenario planning the assumption of no U.S. policy adjustments is, for better or worse, the place to start. 21 Hopefully this American slang is excusable in the year of the dog. There is also a role for Asia, which we discuss in Eichengreen and Park (2005), but again this country is not our subject in this paper on emerging markets.
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being allocated.22 While not disputing that China needs more industrial capacity, modern
housing, and urban infrastructure, there are reasons for doubting that these can be deployed
even more rapidly than is currently the case. This means that current account adjustment will
have to occur through reductions in saving.
Some of this adjustment will occur naturally over a period of years through changes
in the private sector.23 But in the short run � which is the time horizon relevant here � the
main agent for reducing national saving must be the government. The authorities should
begin now to gradually increase spending on education, health care, social security, urban
infrastructure, modern housing, and rural modernization generally, since in China it will take
considerable time to implement the requisite fiscal adjustments. A limited increase in public
dissaving would move Chinese savings rates in a direction compatible with global
rebalancing.
The case for fiscal stimulus in China has been made by Blanchard and Giavazzi
(2005). They observe that the country has considerable fiscal room for maneuver even
accounting for the implicit fiscal liabilities created by problems in the banking sector, public
debt levels remain low. Others such as Genberg et al. (2005) are more cautious. China can
only build so many dams, housing projects, and power generating plants in the short run.
Moreover, a further increase in publicly-funded construction projects would open the door to
22 The favorite statistic we have heard is that China is building enough office space every 120 days to match all the office space on the island of Manhattan. Driving around a major Chinese city late in the day and looking to see how many office windows are illuminated makes one wonder where the demand will come for all this capacity. 23 As structural change becomes more predictable, households will engage in less precautionary saving. The need to accumulate a financial nest egg will become less pressing as workers worry less about losing jobs in state owned enterprises, as the state builds pension and health care systems to provide for the elderly, and as the development of credit markets enables households to borrow to defray the costs of tuition, home purchases, and consumer durables. After 2015 the ageing of the population will reduce personal savings, as per the predictions of the life-cycle model. But time will be required for these effects to be felt. None of them will operate on the horizon relevant to global rebalancing.
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the diversion of public funds and bureaucratic inefficiency. To increase social spending, the
central government must secure the cooperation of local governments. It is not clear that
systematic cooperation to ensure the efficient allocation of public funds can be arranged in
short order. And simply throwing money at provincial governments may create additional
scope for politically-connected lending to state enterprises and others.
Wouldn�t further stimulus to domestic demand create risks of inflation and
overheating? Here is where there is an argument for currency appreciation. Expansionary
fiscal policy in a context where fiscal solvency is not at issue will strengthen the exchange
rate. Real appreciation will then slow the growth of exports and prevent overheating and
inflation. With the decline in national savings rates, demand will rotate from exports to
domestic markets, and orderly appreciation of the exchange rate will work to facilitate this
reallocation.
There is a considerable literature debating precisely how much renminbi appreciation
is required. Framing the issue as we do here � starting with the need for a reduction in
national saving, moving from there to the need for fiscal action, and viewing the adjustment
of the exchange rate as an equilibrium response � suggests a pragmatic approach to the
question. How much nominal and real exchange rate adjustment is required will depend on
the magnitude of the fiscal initiative and how national saving is affected.24 It will depend on
the evolution of America�s growth and current account. A large reduction in Chinese savings
that creates significant risks of inflation and overheating will have to be met with a
substantial appreciation. A smaller reduction in Chinese savings, which we see as the more
likely case, will warrant a smaller real appreciation to avoid precipitating a significant growth
24 In other words, do Chinese households raise their savings in a Ricardian response to expected future taxes, or do they reduce their savings as they observe the development of a social safety net?
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slowdown. Similarly, continuing strong demand for imports by the United States will help to
reconcile a larger renminbi appreciation with the maintenance of Chinese export growth. All
this suggests a wait-and-see attitude toward currency appreciation and, in particular, letting
market forces influence the response.25
But since China is only a fraction the size of the United States, this means that, from
the point of view of global demand, demand expansion in China can only offset a fraction of
demand contraction in the United States. Even together, in other words, the U.S. and China
only comprise part of the adjustment story.
This points to the need for a contribution from other East Asian countries, many of
which also have scope for expansionary fiscal policies. To be sure, East Asian countries
value fiscal prudence. Reflecting this tradition of fiscal conservatism, government debt as a
share of GDP has been low in East Asia except for Japan and the Philippines (Table 2).
Many young democracies in East Asia find it difficult to adjust fiscal policy as a result of a
slow and complicated political process of determining the size and distribution of
government expenditure between projects, sectors, and regions. Fiscal policy can even be
procyclical insofar as decision and implementation lags are very long. East Asian
policymakers are also anxious to avoid replicating Japan�s experience with a pump-priming
policy that has resulted mostly in a massive increase in national debt.
25 This wait-and-see attitude is consistent with the rhetoric of the PBOC and the Chinese government. It is also consistent with the idea that China will want to deploy a range of policy instruments to protect itself against the disorderly correction of global imbalances. If other investors, public and private, grow reluctant to finance the U.S. deficit, China will not be able to support the dollar by itself. If the dollar falls sharply against other currencies, then the renminbi/dollar rate will have to appreciate in order to contain inflation and avoid overheating. To put it another way, keeping the renminbi pegged to a falling dollar would imply faster monetary expansion in China, which is undesirable. Sharp compression of the U.S. current account deficit, which is what is implied by this scenario, would imply a sharp slowdown in the growth of Chinese exports. In turn this would render the case for fiscal expansion all the more compelling.
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Among the ASEAN states, Indonesia and the Philippines are in no position to
contemplate further increases in government spending or significant tax cuts. The
Indonesian government is committed to further fiscal consolidation to reduce vulnerability
arising from the high level of public debt. Its objective is to achieve broad budgetary balance
by 2006-2007 consistent with lowering public debt to no more than 50 percent of GDP. The
Indonesian government has also been engaged in fiscal reform that envisages more efficient
tax administration and improvement in budget preparation and execution. In the
Philipppines, public debt as a share of GDP is upward of 80 per cent. The government has
committed itself to balancing the budget by 2009 by tax increases and streamlining fiscal
expenditure.
Thailand and Malaysia have been more successful at bringing their budget deficits
down to manageable levels. As a result, Thailand now has a room for additional fiscal
stimulus, and its authorities already see the need to run a budgetary deficit to boost domestic
demand.26 South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan could apply additional doses of fiscal
stimulus. Of these countries, South Korea has been most active in implementing an
expenditure switching policy by combining an increase in government spending with an
exchange rate appreciation. The other two countries have not been as active as export
earnings have been large enough to sustain relatively high rates of growth and they have been
more reluctant to diversify away from an export-led growth strategy. But all of them will
have to take additional fiscal action in the event of a disorderly correction. In turn, allowing
other East Asian currencies to appreciate along with the renminbi rather than following the
dollar down would avoid fanning inflation and support the rotation of demand away from
exports and toward domestic absorption. It would also address the collective action problem
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where no Asian country wants to be first in allowing its currency to appreciate relative to the
dollar because it fears it will suffer a loss of competitiveness in neighboring Asian markets.27
Latin America. Compared to East Asia, Latin American countries are in an easier
position insofar as they are less open and therefore export less to the United States (as a share
of GDP), Mexico and parts of Central America notwithstanding to the contrary. But they are
more vulnerable to the negative financial effects of a flight to quality if a hard landing in the
United States disturbs financial markets, in turn reducing investors� appetite for emerging
market debt. Levels of gross and net indebtedness are higher (Latin American countries have
both more debt and fewer reserves relative to GDP). Importantly, the share of short-term
debt that has to be regularly rolled over is higher, as is the share of interest-rate-linked debt
that would be immediately affected by any flight to quality (see Figure 1). Not all countries
are susceptible to this problem: Mexican and Chilean debt is long-term and locked in at fixed
interest rates. But the same is not the case of other important Latin American countries, first
and foremost Brazil. A number of other countries in the region have pre-funded their 2006
borrowing, as noted above. But they too will have to come back to the market to refund their
maturing short-term debt in subsequent years, exposing them to rollover risk.
Recent debt-management policies designed to limit such vulnerabilities may actually
have inadvertently been heightening exposure to the risks associated with the scenario
contemplated here. Historically, foreign-currency-denominated debt has been the bane of
Latin American governments� existence; in the typical crisis, an external shock in the form of
a sudden stop of capital flows would lead to currency depreciation against the dollar and
26 Or at least they find doing so expedient for the pursuit of other political objectives. 27 And therefore, in the case of countries that rely on inward foreign investment, be regarded as a less attractive destination for such funds.
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hence a sharp rise in the local currency cost of interest and amortization.28 Now that Latin
American countries are able to interest investors (domestic and to some extent foreign) in
local-currency debt, they have been taking advantage of circumstances to exchange dollar
bonds for local currency issues in order to reduce this source of vulnerability. But the still
limited willingness of investors to hold long-term fixed-rate domestic-currency debt
securities, aside from those of Mexico and Chile, means that the authorities are trading
currency exposure for interest rate exposure. This is most obviously the strategy in Brazil,
but that country is not alone.
But in the scenario considered here it is the United States, not the Latin American
countries, that initially experiences the sudden stop. With the dollar falling rather than rising,
it is not dollar-denominated debt that becomes more burdensome. The problem instead lies
in the flight to quality that flows from the associated financial dislocations and investors�
reduced appetite for emerging market debt. As the prices of emerging market debt securities
fall and interest rates rise, governments will find it more costly to service floating rate
obligations. They will find it more costly and difficult to re-fund maturing short-term debts.
The Brazilian strategy of retiring dollar debt can thus be seen as a bet against the disorderly-
correction scenario whose implications are developed in this paper. The strategy in place is
heightening the economy�s vulnerability in the event that the bet goes wrong.
In addition to the adverse impact on consumer and investor confidence, this also
means that governments will have less scope, relative to their counterparts in East Asia, for
offsetting the decline in U.S. and local demand with expansionary fiscal policy. The fiscal
position will deteriorate because of the slowdown in economic growth and hence in tax
revenues, as in Asia; this reflects the operation of automatic stabilizers. But will then
28 See Cespedes, Chang and Velasco (2002).
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deteriorate further because of higher debt servicing costs in the scenario considered here. In
Latin America, histories of fiscal excess, which show up as higher public debt ratios than in
East Asia, encourage the markets to extrapolate future deficits from current deficits � to
interpret even well-timed fiscal initiatives as indications of a loss of fiscal discipline. If
confidence in fiscal discipline is undermined, increased public spending and reductions in the
tax take may only give rise to sharply higher interest rates and capital flight that vitiate the
normal Keynesian effects of fiscal policy.
Latin American countries have made considerable progress in terms of fiscal
consolidation in recent years. But public debt ratios remain uncomfortably high at more than
50 per cent of GDP continent wide, which is ten percentage points higher than even in 1997.
Gross public debt (as distinct from external debt) in Argentina remains extremely high in the
wake of the recent restructuring. Bolivia, Uruguay, Columbia and a number of smaller Latin
American countries all have public debt/GDP ratios well in excess of the 40 per cent
regarded as the ceiling on prudent levels by the IMF (see e.g. Krueger 2006). One must be
careful here to distinguish gross and net debt (netting our reserves) and to take into account
cross holdings of public debt by public agencies and public pension assets (see Table 3). But
none of this changes the essential point. (Again, Table 4 makes clear that the contrast with
Asia is stark.)
Between 2002 and 2005 the primary surplus in Latin America swung from 2.0 to
nearly 3.5 of GDP on the back of respectable growth and strong commodity prices. But
against a backdrop where investors worry that public debts are too high, it is arguably the
headline fiscal balance, which determines whether debts continue to rise or fall, and not the
primary balance to which investors pay attention. There has been progress here as well, but
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the headline balance is still in deficit in the amount of some 1 ½ per cent of GDP. Again the
implication is relatively limited fiscal room for maneuver. To be sure, there is variation
across the region: Chile has more room for maneuver than Brazil because it is running a
headline surplus rather than deficit, has a lower debt/GDP ratio, and has less short-term
external debt. (The rest of Latin America lies between these extremes.) The bottom line is
that Latin American countries have less scope than their East Asian counterparts to use fiscal
policy to sustain demand if demand support from the United States tails off.
A further reduction in real interest rates, particularly in Brazil, would provide useful
economic stimulus. If the U.S. and world economies slow down, this would become all the
more desirable against the backdrop of the region�s chronically disappointing growth. But
this is tantamount to assuming a solution to the problem. It effectively assumes a reduction
in political noise, the maintenance of fiscal discipline, and further steps at strengthening
institutions of contract enforcement precisely when a less favorable global economic
environment would make ongoing reforms more difficult to sustain.29
The macroeconomic impact of a reduction in real interest rates would presumably be
felt in the form of higher rates of investment; in Latin America, where savings and
investment rates are less than half of Chinese levels, there is a case for adjusting current
accounts by raising investment rather than reducing saving. The region�s relatively low
levels of investment reflect a long history of policy instability, income inequality, and weak
29 Latin American governments have also sought to encourage savings and investment by transforming pensions from pay-as-you-go systems to privately capitalized individual retirement accounts where this has not already occurred, as in Brazil, authors like Dayal-Gulati and Thimann (1997) having shown that such reforms have a significant impact on savings rates. But it takes time for these reforms to show up in changes in national savings rates � too much time for the measure to be relevant to the resolution of global imbalances. 31 In addition, insofar high savings and growth rates go together (Gavin, Hausmann, and Talvi 1997, Eichengreen 2006), Latin America may be in a low saving, low growth equilibrium from which it is difficult to break out quickly.
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creditor rights.30 Although progress in solving these problems is underway, profound
changes in the social and economic fabric are not knit overnight. That is to say, they are
unlikely to be completed on the time frame relevant to offsetting the impact on the region of
a disorderly correction of global imbalances.
4. Conclusion
Observers from emerging markets have long complained that discussions of the crisis
problem have exaggerated weaknesses in policies and institutions in the developing world
while neglecting the contributions of advanced countries and international financial markets
to global instability. This may or may not be a valid critique of accounts of crises past, but
there is no question that the U.S. current account deficit and its implications for global
adjustment now constitute the main risk to financial stability going forward. As a group,
emerging markets have gone a long way in reducing their vulnerability, shifting from current
account deficit to surplus, pre-funding their external financing needs, building up reserves,
strengthening their fiscal positions, and buttressing price stability. U.S. policy makers have
meanwhile moved in the opposite direction by allowing an unsustainable external imbalance
to emerge.
Although emerging markets have done much to strengthen their financial position,
they now face the urgent task of preparing themselves for the possibility of a sharp correction
of the U.S. current account deficit and the associated adjustments in asset and commodity
prices.31 Sharp changes in asset prices and financial distress may give rise to a flight to
31 To repeat what we said in the introduction, for this policy implication to follow it is not necessary to be certain that a disorderly correction is inevitable in order to be obliged to plan for the contingency that the worst occurs.
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quality; this means that policy makers, in Latin America in particular, should take further
steps, as quickly as possible, to further bullet-proof their finances.
Here Latin America is in both a stronger and weaker position than East Asia. It is in
a stronger position in that its export exposure to the United States is less, mainly because it
exports less as a share of GDP � Mexico and the countries of Central America
notwithstanding to the contrary. But it has less scope for taking offsetting fiscal action.
Neutralizing the impact of slower demand growth in the United States requires stimulating
demand growth at home. In this respect most East Asian countries have more room for
maneuver.
To be sure, there is considerable heterogeneity within both regions in the capacity of
countries to undertake offsetting policy action. Some countries have more limited fiscal
room for maneuver than others. Some are more jittery about letting their currencies move
against the dollar. But initiating these policy changes while global economic and financial
conditions are still good will ease the adjustment. It would be nice if the United States could
participate in this process of cooperative policy adjustment by addressing the domestic roots
of its twin deficits. But emerging markets cannot afford to wait for evidence that American
policy makers appreciate the importance of this, much less on U.S. willingness to act.
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References
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Genberg, Hans, Robert McCauley, Yung Chul Park and Avinash Peraud (2005), �Official Reserves and Currency Management in Asia: Myth, Reality and the Future,� Geneva Reports on the World Economy 7, London: CEPR. Hausmann, Ricardo and Federico Sturzenegger (2005), �Dark Matter Makes the U.S. Deficit Disappear,� Financial Times (8 December), p. A15. International Monetary Fund (2005a), World Economic Outlook, Washington, D.C.: IMF (October). International Monetary Fund (2005b), Asia-Pacific Regional Outlook, Asia and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund (September). Jensen, Niels C. (2005), �Deteriorating Global Liquidity,� Investors Insight (21 November), www.investorsinsight.com. Krueger, Anne (2006), �Macroeconomic Situation and External Debt in Latin America,� www.imf.org (1 February). Lee, Jong Wha (2006), “ Domestic Investment and Regional Imbalances in East Asia,” paper presented to the KIEP and PRI seminar on Emerging Financial Risks in East Asia, January 12-13. Loayza, Norman, Luis Serven and Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (200), �What Drives Private Saving Around the World?� Policy Research Working Paper no.2309 (November). Mann, Catherine (2004), �Managing Exchange Rates: Achievement of Global Re-Balancing or Evidence of Global Co-Dependence?� unpublished manuscript, Institute for International Economics (July). Mussa, Michael (2004), �Exchange Rate Adjustments Needed to Reduce Global Payments Imbalances,� in C. Fred Bergsten and John Williamson eds, Dollar Adjustment: How Far? Against What? Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, pp. 113-138. Obstfeld, Maurice and Kenneth Rogoff (2000), �Perspectives on OECD Capital Market Integration: Implications for U.S. Current Account Adjustment,� in Global Economic Integration: Opportunities and Challenges, Kansas City: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pp.169-208. Obstfeld, Maurice and Kenneth Rogoff (2004), �The Unsustainable U.S. Current Account Position Revisited,� NBER Working Paper no.10869 (November). Roubini, Nouriel and Brad Setser (2004), �The Sustainability of U.S. External Deficits and Chinese External Surpluses,� unpublished manuscript, New York University of Roubini Global Economics (November).
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World Bank (2005a), �Global Imbalances and Emerging Market Economies,� in World Bank, Global Development Finance, Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, pp.51-64. World Bank (2005b), Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries 2006, Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. Xiao, Geng and Zhengge Tu (2005), �China�s Industrial Productivity Revolution: A Stochastic Frontier Production Function Analysis of China�s Large and Medium Industrial Enterprises during 1995-2002,� WEAI and HKEA Conference, Hong Kong, January 15.
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Table 1: Trade by Region, 2004 (Percentage of GDP of Exporting Region/Country) United
States Japan Anglo Saxon Other Industrial Large Euro Small Euro
United States � 0.5 2.1 0.1 0.5 0.5 Japan 2.8 � 0.8 0.1 0.7 0.7 Anglo Saxon 8.6 0.8 � 0.5 2.4 2.4 Other Industrial 3.2 1.0 3.1 � 9.2 5.9 Large Euro 2.2 0.4 2.6 1.8 � 6.5 Small Euro 2.6 0.5 4.2 1.9 15.1 � East Asia: Indonesia 3.4 6.2 1.5 0.1 1.3 1.5 Korea 6.3 3.2 1.9 0.3 2.1 1.8 Malaysia 20.2 10.8 6.9 0.5 4.6 5.4 Philippines 8.3 9.2 1.6 0.1 2.0 4.8 Thailand 9.5 8.3 4.2 0.8 2.7 3.6 Hong Kong 27.0 8.5 9.3 1.7 8.9 6.2 Singapore 21.8 10.8 13.5 0.9 8.6 8.2 China 7.6 4.5 2.0 0.3 2.6 2.3 Other Emerging Markets 2.7 0.5 1.4 0.3 2.6 1.9 Latin America: Argentina 2.4 0.3 0.5 0.3 1.7 2.3 Brazil 3.4 0.5 0.6 0.2 1.5 1.6 Chile 4.9 3.9 1.9 0.4 3.7 3.2 Colombia 7.2 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.9 1.1 Mexico 24.3 0.2 0.7 0.0 0.3 0.4 Peru 5.4 0.8 2.2 0.5 1.1 1.3 Oil-Producers 14.9 1.8 2.2 0.7 2.5 2.2
East Asia 1 East Asia 2 China Other
Emerging Markets
Latin America
Oil-Producers
United States 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.2 1.2 0.1 Japan 2.1 1.2 1.6 0.2 0.2 0.1 Anglo Saxon 0.7 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.2 0.3 Other Industrial 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.9 0.5 2.0 Large Euro 0.5 0.3 0.6 1.0 0.4 0.4 Small Euro 0.4 0.4 0.4 1.3 0.5 0.5 East Asia: Indonesia � 2.9 1.8 1.3 0.3 0.3 Korea � 3.5 7.3 1.3 0.9 0.6 Malaysia � 22.5 7.2 4.2 1.0 0.8 Philippines � 6.7 3.1 0.2 0.2 0.1 Thailand � 7.3 4.3 1.9 0.7 0.7 Hong Kong 8.7 � 70.0 2.8 1.5 0.5 Singapore 43.4 � 14.4 5.6 1.3 1.0 China 3.2 6.9 � 1.1 0.7 0.4 Other Emerging Markets 0.5 0.7 0.5 � 0.3 0.4 Latin America: Argentina 1.1 0.1 2.0 1.5 � 0.4
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30
Brazil 0.5 0.2 0.9 0.6 � 0.6 Chile 2.4 0.2 3.4 0.7 � 0.5 Colombia 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 � 1.7 Mexico 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 � 0.1 Peru 0.4 0.1 1.8 0.2 2.2 0.3 Oil-Producers 1.5 0.5 0.9 1.0 0.3 0.0
Notes: The 12 regions defined here are the United States, Japan, Anglo Saxon (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the
United Kingdom), Other Industrial (Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland), Large Euro (Italy, France, and Germany), Small Euro (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain), East Asia 1 (Indonesia, Korea, Malasia, the Philippines, and Thailand), East Asia 2 (Hong Kong, and Singapore), China, Other Emerging Markets (Egypt, India, Israel, Morocco, Pakistan, South Africa, and Turkey), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), and Oil-Producers (Iran, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela).
Source: IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics and, World Bank, World Development Indicators.
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31
Tab
le 2
. Sel
ecte
d Fi
scal
Indi
cato
rs (p
erce
nt o
f GD
P)
Gen
eral
Gov
ernm
ent G
ross
Deb
t C
entra
l Gov
ernm
ent F
isca
l Bal
ance
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Est
.20
05 P
roj.
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Est
.20
05 P
roj.
Chi
na
16.9
18.7
20.6
21.3
2019
.1
-3.6
-3.1
-3.3
-2.8
-1.7
-1.7
Hon
g K
ong
-0.6
-5-4
.9-3
.2-0
.8-0
.7
Sout
h K
orea
29
.233
.832
.432
.633
.632
.9
1.1
0.6
2.3
2.7
2.3
2.2
Sing
apor
e
7.
94.
84
5.8
3.9
4.5
Taiw
an
24.4
31.5
35.1
37.6
39.6
41.5
-0
.5-2
.8-4
.3-4
.0-3
.3-3
.0
Indo
nesi
a 91
.378
.269
.260
.257
.953
.3
-3.4
-3.2
-1.5
-1.9
-1.4
-1.6
Mal
aysi
a 36
.743
.645
.647
.146
44.8
-5
.7-5
.5-5
.6-5
.3-4
.3-3
.5
Phili
ppin
es
89.1
88.4
93.8
101.
399
.697
.0
-4.6
-4.6
-5.6
-5.0
-4.2
-3.9
Thai
land
23
24.8
31.3
28.5
28.6
26.2
-2
-2.1
-2.3
0.4
0.3
0.5
So
urce
: Reg
iona
l Out
look
Sep
tem
ber 2
005,
Asi
a an
d Pa
cific
Dep
artm
ent,
IMF.
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32
T
able
3: G
ross
and
Net
Deb
t, L
atin
Am
eric
a 20
03
D
ebt a
s a sh
are
of G
DP
Cou
ntry
Gro
ssN
et o
f Cro
ss
Hol
ding
sN
et o
f Cro
ss
Hol
ding
s and
R
eser
ves
Arg
entin
a
1.41
1.35
1.
25
Bel
ize
0.89
0.
87
0.78
B
oliv
ia
0.79
0.
79
0.71
B
razi
l 0.
89
0.87
0.
78
Chi
le
0.54
0.
38
0.16
C
olom
bia
0.65
0.
65
0.52
C
osta
Ric
a 0.
54
0.54
0.
44
Dom
inic
an R
epub
lic
0.58
0.
58
0.56
Ec
uado
r 0.
53
0.53
0.
51
El S
alva
dor
0.46
0.
46
0.34
G
uate
mal
a 0.
20
0.20
0.
08
Hon
dura
s 0.
83
0.83
0.
64
Jam
aica
1.
39
1.23
1.
09
Mex
ico
0.27
0.
27
0.18
N
icar
agua
2.
15
2.15
2.
03
Pana
ma
0.67
0.
63
0.56
Pa
ragu
ay
0.50
0.
50
0.35
Pe
ru
0.48
0.
48
0.33
Tr
inid
ad &
Tob
ago
0.31
0.
31
0.09
U
rugu
ay
1.17
1.
13
0.95
V
enez
uela
0.
47
0.46
0.
28
Ave
rage
Sam
ple
0.75
0.
72
0.60
A
vera
ge S
ampl
e
(wei
ghte
d)
0.61
0.
59
0.49
C
anad
a 0.
62
0.62
0.
58
Uni
ted
Stat
es
0.62
0.
36
0.35
So
urce
: Cow
en e
t al.
(200
5).
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33
Tab
le 3
: G
ross
and
Net
Deb
t, A
sia
2003
-4
Cou
ntry
G
ross
Deb
t N
et o
f Cro
ss H
oldi
ngs
Net
of C
ross
Hol
ding
s and
Res
erve
s
20
03
2004
20
03
2004
20
03
2004
Chi
na 1
) 0.
21
0.22
0.
19
0.18
-0
.09
-0.1
0
Japa
n 2)
1.41
1.
56
1.23
1.
35
1.06
1.
17
Sout
h K
orea
3)
0.23
0.
26
0.22
0.
25
-0.0
3 -0
.04
Hon
gKon
g 4)
-
0.02
-
-0.1
9 -
-0.9
4
Sing
apor
e 1.
05
1.03
1.
01
0.99
-0
.01
-0.0
5
Indo
nesi
a 0.
29
0.27
0.
16
0.16
0.02
0.
02
Mal
aysi
a 5)
0.48
0.
48
0.48
0.
48
0.06
-0
.07
Phili
ppin
es 6
) 0.
78
0.79
0.
75
0.77
0.
58
0.62
Thai
land
0.
28
0.27
0.
25
0.25
-0
.03
-0.0
4
Taiw
an 7)
0.
30
0.32
0.
30
0.32
-0
.39
-0.4
3
Sour
ces :
Inte
rnat
iona
l Fin
anci
al S
tatis
tics a
nd :
1) C
hina
: R
egio
nal O
utlo
ok S
epte
mbe
r 200
5, A
sia
and
Paci
fic D
epar
tmen
t, IM
F
2) S
tatis
tical
Yea
r Boo
k 20
06, J
apan
3) M
inis
try o
f Pla
nnin
g an
d B
udge
t, K
orea
4) T
he T
reas
ury
- The
Hon
g K
ong
Spec
ial A
dmin
istra
tive
Reg
ion,
Hon
g K
ong
5) C
entra
l ban
k of
Mal
aysi
a
6) B
urea
u of
the
Trea
sury
, Phi
lippi
nes
7) C
entra
l Ban
k of
Chi
na, T
aiw
an
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34
Figu
re 1
0.00
%
10.0
0%
20.0
0%
30.0
0%
40.0
0%
50.0
0%
60.0
0%
70.0
0%
80.0
0%
90.0
0%
100.
00%
LAC
EA
PA
LL E
M
Com
posi
tion
of B
onds
Issu
ed o
ver 2
000-
2005
Nom
inal
MT
& L
TIn
dexe
d to
Infla
tion
Floa
ting
Rat
eFo
reig
n C
urre
ncy
Sho
rt Te
rm